


Postprandial

by cutsycat



Series: Dictionary.Com Word of the Day Drabbles [1011]
Category: Bull (TV 2016), NCIS
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 02:43:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13226481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutsycat/pseuds/cutsycat
Summary: Bull has everyone from the TAC team over for Christmas except Danny who had other commitments when some surprise guests arrive. How will Bull handle his old life at NCIS meeting his new life at TAC? And what's this about Senior going to trial?





	Postprandial

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TT_Angst_Queen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TT_Angst_Queen/gifts).



> Another dictionary.com word of the day drabble. This time from 02/05/2002 for the word [postprandial](http://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/2002/02/05/postprandial).
> 
> postprandial  
> Happening or done after a meal.
> 
> This is for Stocking Stuffer #7 requested by TardisType_40 for the 2017 Happy Holidays Challenge, [here](https://ncis-discuss.livejournal.com/95769.html). I hope she enjoys it.
> 
> As always comments, kudos, and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated.

# 

Postprandial

Jason Bull, Marissa, Cable, Benny, and Chunk were all sitting down to Christmas dinner when the doorbell rang. Jason got up to answer the doorbell. It was his house, after all.

“Jimmy?”

“Tony?”

“What are you doing here?”

“I'm Chunk's brother. Chunk invited us.”

Chunk had risen when he heard Jimmy's voice. Jimmy and Tony were shaking hands as Chunk arrived at the front door. Jimmy pulled Tony into a hug.

“It's good to see you.” Jimmy murmured.

“Good to see you too, autopsy gremlin.” Tony DiNozzo aka Jason Bull agreed.

“You didn't tell me you knew Dr. Bull.” Chunk protested as he too hugged Jimmy.

“I didn't know I did.” Jimmy shrugged. “I hope you don't mind. We brought a few extras who had nowhere else to go.”

“Tony!” Abby happily attached herself like a limpet to Tony's body. She'd been having a hard time waiting her turn.

The commotion from Abby's joyful greeting brought Cable, Benny, and Marissa out of their chairs. They joined Chunk and watched with confused looks on their faces as Dr. Bull tried to extract himself from Abby’s grasp without success.

“Abbs can't breathe.” Tony finally gasped out.

Abby pulled back. “Oops. Sorry. Who are all these people? I'm so excited to see you, again. I have so much to tell you about NCIS.”

“Calm down, Abbs. Let's get everyone inside and then we can do introductions.” Tony silently indicated that Abby was blocking the door.

Abby giggled and moved out of the way, so that Breena and Victoria could come in. Tony blinked in shock as Gibbs walked through the door next. “Gibbs?”

“Jethro,” Gibbs gruffly replied, “It's good to see you again, Tony.”

Cable, Marissa, Benny, and Chunk exchanged confused looks at Dr. Bull being called Tony. Chunk, remembering stories Jimmy told him, started sprouting a crazy idea that couldn’t possibly be true. Dr. Bull moved to shut the door behind Gibbs when no one else moved to enter. 

“Wait!” Abby wailed as she heard the tell tale sound of Ducky’s Morgan. 

Tony stopped in the middle of closing the door and looked back at Abby in confusion.

“We have to wait for Ducky. I just heard his car. He also wanted to come, but he wasn’t willing to chance Gibbs’ driving.” Abby chattered happily.

Dr. Bull peered out of the door and sure enough that was Ducky’s Morgan looking for a parking space. Tony shrugged and opened the door wider. If everyone wanted to get cold, it didn’t bother him.

Tony greeted Ducky with a hug. “Welcome, Ducky.”

Tony didn’t get much further than that before Abby was shoving her way through, closing the door, and demanding introductions. Marissa, Cable, and Benny nodded eagerly in agreement with Abby. They also wanted to know who everyone was.

Tony shook his head at Abby’s antics and addressed his jury consultant team. “Alright. This is Jimmy Palmer. Apparently, our own Chunk Palmer's brother though I didn't know that until today.”

“How do you know, Jimmy?” Chunk’s asked curiously.

“You're brothers?” Cable, Marissa, and Abby gasped.

Chunk chuckled. “Yep.” 

Jimmy nodded as well. Their skin color differences had been getting reactions like this all their life.

“Jimmy's wife is Breena and the kid Victoria.” Tony ignored Chunk’s question and continued to introduced the others, indicating each person with a hand wave. “This is Abby Sciuto, the slightly grumpy one is Gibbs, and Ducky is the kind older gentleman.”

“How do you know them all?”

Tony sighed. “They're from a lifetime ago when I worked at NCIS. I worked with Gibbs, Abby, and Jimmy at NCIS.”

“Who are your new friends and what have you been up to, Tony?” Abby eagerly wanted return introductions.

Tony chuckled. “All in good time, Abbs.”

Gesturing to Chunk, Tony started to introduce his TAC team, “As Jimmy knows this is Chunk. The other male is Benny. The nerdy looking one is Cable and the pretty one is Marissa.”

Cable glared at Dr. Bull for that introduction, but it was nowhere near the Gibbs’ glares he used to get, so Tony ignored it. “Let’s eat!”

Dr. Bull was grateful for the distraction from their current case. He hadn’t told the TAC team about it, yet, but he’d received a phone call from his father, Anthony DiNozzo Sr. He wished he could just ignore his father now that he was Dr. Bull.

Unfortunately, it seemed his father was actually standing trial for something the day after Christmas and needed the services of him and his team. Dr. Bull couldn’t refuse even though he was sure that his father would never pay anything for their services. Telling the team would have to be a postprandial activity, Jason wasn’t willing to ruin Christmas dinner for them as well.

Seeing all the food on the table, Ducky exclaimed, “Oh! I forgot. I brought something to add to tonight’s dinner. Let me go get it.”

Ducky hurried out and retrieved his dish and brought it back in. He added it to the already full table. The main almost centerpiece of the table was the huge roasted turkey that Jason had cooked himself. 

Jason had also provided 2 homemade lasagnas, a regular meat based one and a vegetable one. Marissa brought an apple pie for later. Chunk’s contribution consisted of a three bean salad, a green bean casserole, and mashed potatoes. 

Benny not being known for his cooking abilities had brought rolls and salad. Everyone had brought plenty to share of their favorite drinks. Lifting the tin foil off of his dish, Ducky revealed a sweet potato casserole.

Gibbs made sure to be seated next to Tony. He had his own plans, including getting Tony to hire him. He'd heard about Senior's case and knew Tony would need all the support he could get to deal with Senior.

The others spread out around the table, taking their own seats. Conversation started up and the two teams mingled together. Jason wasn't sure what he thought of this.

NCIS mingling with the jury consultants seemed like a bad plan, but he couldn't kick any of them out. He just hoped that he still had most of his secrets at the end of the night. At least, Gibbs seemed to spend most of his time focused on Jason/Tony instead of trying to spread his secrets.

Jason couldn’t help wondering what Gibbs was up to, however. He seemed a lot chattier than he normally was. After they wrapped up the meal and everyone started making motions to leave, Dr. Bull called out, “Marissa, Benny, Cable, and Chunk please stay. We need to discuss some case related stuff.”

The four of them set their things back down and Dr. Bull nodded to his living room. They said their goodbyes to the NCIS team and headed for the living room. Tony remained to have his own private goodbyes with the NCIS team. 

Exchanging personal greetings and questions, he wished them all goodbye. Only Gibbs had other plans. He nodded his head to the others and told them he’d meet them outside. 

“Hire me.” Gibbs demanded.

“Excuse me?” Dr. Bull drew himself up and raised an imperious eyebrow up in return. Who did Gibbs think he was ordering him around? He wasn’t Tony DiNozzo, lap dog, anymore. He was Dr. Jason Bull.

“I know what happened with Senior. You’ll need me. Trust me.”

“How do you know about that?”

“I always know.” Gibbs smirked.

Inwardly Tony shook his head, he should have remembered that. Outwardly, he just glared at Gibbs. “Why should I hire you? You know nothing about jury consulting.”

“No, but I know a lot more about you and Senior and this case than any of your team do.”

“Fine. On a trial basis only.”

Gibbs nodded and left.

Dr. Bull shook his head. Pulling on his normal Bull persona, he headed to the living room to brief his team about one Anthony DiNozzo Sr. and what he knew about the case, which wasn’t much at this point.

Cable rushed to get all the information she could for their new case involving Anthony DiNozzo Sr. While she waited for it, she also started a search for Dr. Bull’s history. She’d tried before and been unsuccessful, but with everyone from NCIS calling him Tony, she wanted to try again.

They’d never had such a short prep time for a case before. However, Dr. Bull didn’t seem worried. In fact, he seemed to have a lot more knowledge about this client than any other client. 

There was something strange going on. Cable just couldn’t put her finger on what it was. Maybe Marissa would know. 

Marissa shook her head and told Cable to go back to work and that Dr. Bull wouldn’t be happy about her digging into his personal life. Cable stayed behind as usual while Benny, Marissa, and Dr. Bull went to the jury selection for the trial. Gibbs showed up at the office.

“Are you looking for Dr. Bull? He won’t be back for a while.”

“I know.” Gibbs wandered around, poking at random things. “This won’t work. Senior would never go for it. Tony would know that.”

“It’s the only way the mock trials come out in his favor.” Cable pointed out.

“Find another way. It’s not going to work.”

Cable huffed and ignoring Gibbs went back to her work. When Dr. Bull returned from the jury selection, he didn’t look happy. Senior was paying for his own lawyers and they weren’t listening to anything he said.

Gibbs handed Tony a hazelnut latte as soon as he walked in. “You’ll need this. Your people are idiots.”

Dr. Bull leveled his piercing gaze on Gibbs. “I don’t run things the way you do. Don’t talk about my people that way.”

Gibbs shrugged. “I was just trying to help. You know Senior wouldn’t go for their plan.”

“I know. It’s still the best strategy, but we’ll do what we can for him without it.”

“Do you really want him to get off?”

“What I want doesn’t matter in this case.”

“What you want will always matter, Tony.”

“Didn’t with you before.”

“Things are different now. You have your own team.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“See that you do.” Gibbs smiled and left. 

“Oi! Where do you think you’re going? You’re under my employ now, remember?” Tony barked out after Gibbs.

“I’m going to get you leverage.”

Dr. Bull turned to the rest of his team. “What do you think you’re looking at? Back to work. We still have a case to win.”

Marissa started. “That was”

“I know.” Dr. Bull interrupted.

Cable gasped when she pulled up her queries about a Tony at NCIS and realized that Tony DiNozzo at NCIS was the son of one Anthony DiNozzo Sr. and looked exactly like Dr. Jason Bull.

“Do you think this means what I think it means?” Cable asked Danny thrusting the information at her.

Danny glanced at the information and snorted. “I know it does. I’ve known all along.”

“You didn’t tell me?”

“It wasn’t my secret to tell.”

In the end, it was Gibbs’ leverage that saved Senior. Well if you could call a five year community service saving Senior. Still Tony knew what Gibbs had done and that he had done it for him not Senior.

“Thanks Jethro.”

“Dinner? My place?”

“Steaks?”

“Of course.”

“I’ll be there.” Dr. Bull didn’t know where this new side of Gibbs would lead, but he hoped it would lead to a happy relationship.

**Author's Note:**

> Also, I'm looking for a writing buddy. Full details are [here](https://cutsycat.livejournal.com/53610.html). It is friends locked, so you'll have to add me as a friend on lj before you can read it. 
> 
> Also, Drakonyashka has translated a couple of my works into Russian. [Tutelage](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378780) and [Imbue](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378840). Go support them.
> 
>  **Warning! Warning! 2017 ends in less than a week! When 2017 ends, the 2017 prompt collection will close.** You have 50 prompts you can use for 2017. Use them up before they go away. Prompts are currently open. If you'd like to prompt me, please do so [here](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/NCIS_Prompts_2017/profile). Note you have to be an ao3 member to do this. 
> 
> When 2018 starts, I will open a 2018 Prompt collection. In fact, I have already created the 2018 Prompt collection [here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/cutsycat_NCIS_Prompts_2018/profile), but sign ups are closed until 2018, so you won't be able to sign up and prompt me on this collection, yet. The 2017 prompts continue to remain over for you to prompt me with until the end of the year.
> 
> If you are not an ao3 member, you can prompt me [here](http://cutsycat.livejournal.com/50701.html). Please follow the same rules as are listed in the above link. However, because this is a handmade prompt form(that thinks it's a poll), it is considerably more limited than what ao3 provides, so please use the ao3 form if you're an ao3 member. Please note the name option is for a name that I can say this is for so that you know it's for you. Since this is for non ao3 members it won't be true gifts, but you will be mentioned in the notes.
> 
> Feel free to leave feedback here if you think something could be improved(either in the prompt process or the story itself).


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